


White Wolf

by ATouchOfHeavenlyLight



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Bingo Card Two, F/F, Fantasy AU, Mirandy Year of Fun & Frolics, Witch - Freeform, Writers Bingo, minor blood, wolf - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 06:03:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15285261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATouchOfHeavenlyLight/pseuds/ATouchOfHeavenlyLight
Summary: All her life, Andy had been guarded. From the time she was a little girl, a wolf lived just at the edge of her family’s property, somewhere in the woods, and acted as her protector from the time she was little. Until one day, it turns out her wolf isn’t just a wolf after all.





	White Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> For bingo card 2: wolf  
> A plot bunny got me and I got a littttttle carried away.

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a little girl and her White Wolf. Well, the White Wolf did not live with her necessarily. She lived somewhere in the woods. 

One morning when five-year-old Andy went out to do her chores, the White Wolf showed up. At first Andy thought to get her father, thought the wolf might hurt her, but they just stood at the edge of her family’s property and watched. Something in their gaze made them seem…unthreatening. 

She went about doing her morning chores, feeding the chickens—which she counted every morning to make sure the Wolf wasn’t eating them—collecting eggs, and collecting water from the stream. That was the only time the Wolf moved from their spot before Andy went to bed—the Wolf would follow at a distance, just enough to keep Andy in their sight as she entered the woods to get to the stream. 

And that was their routine. Andy didn’t approach the Wolf, and they never approached her. She asked her parents about the Wolf one evening at dinner, and they laughed, patted her on the head saying she was ‘so very cute’ to have made up an imaginary wolf friend. 

But the Wolf wasn’t imaginary. Andy  _ saw  _ them! Didn’t mommy or daddy see them when they tended the garden or the fields where daddy grew wheat, or when they saw to the horses every day? 

The Wolf was  _ there.  _ Andy knew it, and she was rather frustrated that her parents didn’t believe her!

So, one morning she took a deep, bolstering breath, stuck out her chest, and marched right out the front door of the cottage and straight up to where the Wolf stood in wait.

And burst into tears the moment she was in reach of the Wolf. She scrunched her eyes shut and wished mommy or daddy would come! They were outside, they had to see the Wolf now that Andy was with it. She was only little! What if it ate her!

But then she felt soft wet nose nuzzling at her cheeks as the Wolf, seeming somewhat bemused, comforted her, sought to make certain Andy knew they meant no harm.

Andy sniffled and cracked an eye open to peek at the Wolf up-close.

A girl Wolf, she thought. She wasn’t sure how you figured that out, but the Wolf was so beautiful.

“Pretty,” Andy said, as she tentatively reached out a hand and petted the Wolf between her ears. 

She was pretty, covered in pure, icy white fur, with a striking pair of beautiful blue eyes.

She took to greeting the Wolf every day after that. Her parents wondered why she liked to play at the edge of their property, they didn’t see her Wolf, but she didn’t mind it so much. She didn’t need them to believer her, her Wolf was real enough for her.

Every morning before she’d set about her chores, Andy would run to meet the Wolf and bring her something from breakfast—sausage or a biscuit, and one time, eggs but they were runny in her hands and made a horrible yucky mess. She’d pet her (well, not the day with the eggs, ick) and tell her to have a nice day before rushing off to complete her chores.

She didn’t know why the Wolf was always there, but it was nice. She was pretty and kind, and made Andy feel less lonely, living way out in a cottage with just her parents. 

She became even more grateful for the Wolf’s presence when she learned just why her Wolf always made certain to watch her as she went into the woods to the stream.

She was collecting water in a bucket when she heard a sound she hadn’t heard before.

A growl.

Looking up from the stream, standing just a few feet in front of her, was a large black wolf. It was smaller than her Wolf, but it was still  _ huge _ . Huge, and growling, raising on its back legs and snapping at Andy before launching forward.

She had barely just enough time to scream before a body of fur collided with hers. 

From behind. It wrapped itself around her until her head was nuzzled in the crook of its neck, while the large black wolf’s jaws snapped and sank into the shoulder of her White Wolf.

Andy screamed again and began to cry, “No! Don’t hurt her! Stop it!”

Her Wolf jerked, and the black wolf went flying to slam its back into the trunk of a large tree. Her Wolf unwrapped from around Andy then and took a stance similar to the one the black wolf had used before attacking, and launched her pursuit after the black wolf, giving it chase deeper into the woods.

Andy sat in the dirt, shocked, and terrified.

When a low, dismal cry of a wolf pierced the sky, she began to sob.

 

It had been two days since the attack at the stream. Her parents reprimanded her—they believed there’d been a wolf at the stream, they’d gone and seen the tracks it left behind—they insisted she was foolish to have gone near it just because she had some fascination with playing-pretend she had a pet wolf.

It wasn’t play-pretend! Her Wolf was out there, somewhere in the woods, hurt or…or dead.

Mommy and daddy didn’t believe her, but she had to know if her Wolf was okay—what if she needed help? If Andy didn’t have mommy to help when she was hurt or sick, she didn’t think she’d ever get better. So, she gathered up a little basket of food—soup, she asked mommy to make her soup, and she put it in a jug and tipped it into the basket with her favorite blanket and some biscuits and marched off into the woods. 

She found a nice pointy stick on the way, she was sure she could use to fight off any big meanie wolves prowling around. She’d show them!

She just hoped she didn’t have to. 

Andy walked through the morning-lit woods and she wasn’t sure what to do. She wasn’t even sure where to look—everywhere, she supposed. She didn’t know her Wolf’s name, and she didn’t think shouting for ‘Wolf’ would do her any good. Any wolf might think she’s calling for them. Oh! But her Wolf was special—with pretty, thick white fur. 

“White Wolf! White Wolf! White Wolf, where are you?” Andy called out as she ventured deeper and deeper into the woods.

“Whatever do you think you’re doing here?”

Andy’s eyes went wide, and she gasped as she turned to see who had spoken.

There was a woman. She looked like she was mommy’s age, and she was beautiful, really tall, wearing gray robes, with…

Andy giggled. The woman raised an eyebrow at her.

“Your hair looks like my Wolf’s! Its so pretty and white, just like hers!” and then, “My Wolf—I’m looking for her. She got hurt the other day and hasn’t come…” the word ‘home’ didn’t sound right, the Wolf lived somewhere else, “she hasn’t come to see me since. I’m scared she’s hurt and needs help.”

“So, you thought you’d go off into the dangerous woods, all by yourself to find a wolf because you think she needs your help?” there was something like a mix between disapproval and amusement in the woman’s voice, and then she motioned for Andy to follow her. “Come along Andrea, I know about your wolf.”

Andrea? How did she know her name? Mommy and daddy only called her Andrea when she was in trouble, but she didn’t think the woman meant it in that way.

She followed the woman deeper into the woods to find a cabin, nestled in a small clearing in the midst of the forest. Smoke rose from the chimney, and it was only once she was inside the cabin that she realized just how very cold it had been outside. Winter was on its way soon. She wondered if her Wolf liked the snow. 

There was a rocking chair sitting in front of the fireplace, and the woman gestured for Andy to sit in it before she took a seat of her own, on the rug, sitting crisscross applesauce to face Andy, the woman looked up at her. Her eyes were blue! 

“You’re so pretty!” Andy said as she reached out a hand to touch a lock of the woman’s soft hair.

The woman chuckled at that. “Andrea, I believe you wished to know about your wolf, yes?”

Andy nodded eagerly.

“Your White Wolf lives in these woods. She leaves them only to watch over your farm and she did get hurt the other day when the other wolf attacked,” she seemed to take pause. “That other wolf, Andrea, I hope you realize it was nothing like your Wolf. That creature was wild and would have certainly hurt you. You cannot go wandering alone in the woods like this again, do you understand?”

Andy nodded. “But…but what about my Wolf? You said she was hurt? Where is  she?”

“She is in her home, resting. She will return to your farm once she’s recovered,” the woman said, like it was a promise. 

“Can I go see her?  I promise not to bother her or anything, mommy says its important to get good sleep when you’re hurt. But I brought her stuff.”

“… _ stuff _ ?” the woman asked, derisive.

“Soup, and biscuits, and a blanket—all the stuff I need when I get sick!” Andy said as she opened up the basket for the woman to see. 

The woman raised a hand to her mouth as if to cover it, though it looked like she might be smiling, “You brought the White Wolf  soup?”

“Uh-huh. Chicken noodle! Mommy made it, I’m too little to use the stove she says.”

The woman dropped her hand and was more serious when she said, “Your mommy is right, you’re much too young to be tinkering around with a stove of all things. I’m glad you asked her to prepare the food, but I doubt you asked her permission to wander the woods looking for a Wolf.”

Andy’s nose scrunched up as she said, “Mommy and daddy don’t believe in the Wolf! They wouldn’t help her, and somebody has to!”

“If you leave your basket here, Andrea, your wolf will have it, I can promise you that,” the woman said. “But I ask that in return, you promise never to wander around the woods alone ever again.”

Andy nodded. “I promise.”

“Very good,” the woman took the basket from Andy and rose to her feet, wincing slightly, a hand going to brace her shoulder as she stood up straight. She put the basket down on a round dining table and opened it up again, she pulled out the blue blanket that Andy had packed inside. “I presume this is yours?”

“Mhm, my favorite!” Andy enthused, “It always helps me feel better and keeps me safe when I sleep, so I thought my Wolf could use it. Make sure she gets it, please?”

“You’re certain? Wouldn’t you miss  it?”

Andy shook her head. “I’m a big girl, I don’t need it anymore. My Wolf keeps me safe now, so my blankie should keep her safe!”

“Very well,” the woman said and left the blanket in the basket. “If you are not tired, Andrea, you should return home now. Your Wolf will return to you very  soon.”

Andy nodded, and the woman held out her hand for Andy to take, and she led her back towards Andy’s farmland.

She was really glad because honestly, she wasn’t entirely certain how to get home on her own. 

The woman walked her to the edge of the woods and said, “Remember your promise, Andrea.”

“I will…um…” she thought for a moment.

“Is something the matter?”

“I don’t know your name!” Andy admitted, “I’m sorry, I should have asked…you already knew my name, how come?”

“Your Wolf knows your name. That is how I learned  it.”

“Oh!” she guessed that made sense. Could she talk with her Wolf?

“My name is Miranda.”

“Miranda,” Andy confirmed. “Well, I’ll keep my promise Miranda, I will! Say hi to my Wolf for me okay? And tell her I hope she feels better.”

“I will.”

Andy smiled up at her and nodded one last time before rushing back up the field to her house.

 

Just as promised, the next day her Wolf was back, standing at the edge of the property. In her mouth she held the picnic basket Andy packed for her by its handle, and her blanket was tied around her shoulders. 

Andy came running out of the cottage to greet the Wolf, and gave her a big, big hug around the neck. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” the Wolf dropped the basket at Andy’s feet and gave a little ‘yip’ as she nuzzled Andy’s cheek with her  nose.

Andy thought for a moment.

“I don’t know your name,” she said, “do you have one already, or should I name you?”

She was met with silence. Of course, her Wolf couldn’t talk so…

“Miranda,” she said, and her Wolf looked bewildered for a moment. Huh? Oh! Maybe she was confused! “I’ll call you Miranda, after the nice lady I met yesterday. She has pretty hair and eyes like you do.”

Her Wolf gave a little huff at that, but didn’t respond negatively, so Andy supposed it was fine.

And so, Andy’s days with a Wolf named Miranda were just  beginning.

 

Miranda no longer stayed at the edge of the property, after the wolf attack, Andy found her Wolf always at her side, from the moment she came outside, till the moment she had to go to bed. 

And that’s how it was, every single day for years. As she got older she questioned herself about the Wolf she’d named Miranda. She was certain Miranda was real—she could feel her fur beneath her fingers when she petted her, her body was warm and worked like a walking furnace when she walked alongside Andy in the snowy winter months.

Her parents never talked about her, didn’t think she was there, and in the end, Andy supposed it was for the best. If they did see a great White Wolf following their daughter around, they might be afraid and panic, and try to kill Miranda.

Andy didn’t want that, she loved her Wolf with all her heart.

But Andy was also…lonely. Her Wolf kept her company, but that was company that couldn’t talk back. And…there was just more, Andy needed. She wanted to go somewhere, see something, be someone. And so, after ten years of the Wolf as her only companion, Andy went down to the stream with her one day to have a serious discussion.

“Mother says I’ve done well with my reading, and writing—she thinks I write like the kind of person who writes books. I’m not sure about that but…” she took a deep breath. Why was this so hard to talk about? Why was she even talking about it? Miranda was a Wolf, she probably didn’t understand anything Andy said to her. She could be reciting a banana bread recipe for all she knows. But Miranda was important to her, and she wouldn’t just leave without saying something. “I want to write. There are places that look for writers who can report on important things happening in bigger cities. And I want to…I want to see more than just my families little farm, you  know? I want to travel and meet people and learn new things. I’ve talked about it with my parents, and my father has family in a city not far from here. I’m going to go see them, stay there for a while and just…see what happens. Maybe I’ll just meet some new people but…I’d like it very much if I could make some sort of life there.”

Her stared up at her silently, her features reserved. She might not understand what Andy was saying, but she may be able to understand that it means ‘goodbye’.

Andy’s chin quivered as she started to cry. “I don’t want to leave you, really I don’t I just…I just need this. M-Miranda you have to understand, I love you, and I’ll be back I just—”

Miranda licked the side of Andy’s face and nipped at a strand of hair that loosed itself from her braid.

Andy giggled and hugged Miranda tight. “I’m glad you understand. You’ll be okay, right?”

Miranda looked at her for what felt like a long moment, and then bowed her head, as if in approval. 

“Good,” Andy breathed a sigh of relief.

 

“I’ll really miss you, but I’ll be back, and I’ll tell you everything, okay!” 

Those were the last words Andrea had spoken to her, hugging her tight and kissing her on the forehead before shaking the fur of her shoulders a bit in a playful way she did when she thought Miranda might need cheering up. 

Miranda needed a lot more than cheering up. She needed Andrea. It had been five years since she rode away in the back of the small horse driven cart with her father at the reigns. He arrived home a week later sans Andrea and pronounced her squared away in her aunt’s home. 

The letters helped. Andrea wrote to her parents, and Miranda kept an eye out for the little wagon that heralded their delivery, kept close to the cottage to listen as Andrea’s mother read her daughter’s letters aloud.

At first the letters came in droves, Andrea spoke of homesickness, quelled only with her excitement in her new environment. She flourished in the city, came to make close friends she described in the earlier portion of her letters. A few months into her time there, a letter came with a news article attached. Andrea admitted she’d taken an internship at a newspaper printer, and after a time, they allowed her to submit an article of her own.

Her writing was exquisite, and Miranda loved the letters all the more when they included articles.

But then the letters stopped. Andrea no longer wrote of herself to her family, but once or twice a month, her articles came.

Miranda was worried. She was rather well trapped here and would be until Andrea…well until Andrea returned and something could be done to end her imprisonment, such as it was. Never, in all her years in this area had Miranda felt the constrictions of her cage.

But she’d had Andrea. 

Moon above, Miranda should have…she should have done something, Andrea needed companionship, more than Miranda could provide in her Wolf form. But…there was so much danger prowling around Andrea’s cottage—packs of wild wolves, bears, snakes, and that was just the wildlife. Men, bandits and thieves had often seen the lone farmstead at the edge of the woods, away from protections the city provided, as a soft, easy target. Andrea’s father was hardly a warrior. He would die defending his family true, but he would die, and then so would they. Being in her wolf form…she was able to protect Andrea, protect her family, keep them safe.

Also…it had been easier. It was the first form Andrea had seen her in, the one she became familiar and comfortable with and Miranda was not wholly certain how, when, to…reveal herself.

That day when little Andrea had wandered into the woods, determined to find and help her Wolf, Miranda had been horrified. It had been so dangerous, she was just recovering and hardly in any condition to defend her if she’d needed it—she would have, Miranda would give her life to protect Andrea. 

But she’d done well to secure the immediate area around her cabin. Magic was…tricky, to say the least, when it came to mortals. She’d watched Andrea like a hawk…awful turn of phrase. She’d watched Andrea  _ closely _ as she neared her cabin, careful to monitor for the least bit of disturbance of her wards, or discomfort in the girl. 

She passed through Miranda’s wards unaffected. It was to be expected considering the circumstances, and a relief. However, Andrea’s parents were a consideration when Miranda thought on warding Andrea’s cottage in a similar fashion—the magic at use could make them sick, affect them in unpredictable and detrimental ways. They held no bond to the caster, not as Andrea did. It was why the stream was so very dangerous—she could ward no part of it, not while Andrea’s parents used water from it.  _ That _ would end in unspeakable disaster. 

Andrea had been much too trusting of a stranger for Miranda’s liking though she did hope it was because she was Miranda, and Andrea sensed some level of familiarity. The following day, when Andrea had sought to name her Wolf, Miranda’s heart had stopped. She thought she’d been found out, considered transforming so she could explain—but she would be visible to Andrea’s parents in her human form, and naked. She wasn’t sure she could summon her robes to herself from that distance, though she did find that, when she transitioned at the end of the day, the warm cerulean blanket Andrea had bestowed upon her, did rather well to cover her up.

But Andrea had merely been naming Miranda after…well, herself. She hadn’t any inkling of just how very right she’d been. It was just as well. Andrea was far too young to even comprehend what had happened, what Miranda was. Who, Miranda was. 

And then she’d grown into such an amazing young lady, and Miranda could hardly deny her the desire to leave the tiny landscape of her family home, to expand her world view past the edge of her property. 

But now as time wore on, Miranda regretted not…doing something. She should have revealed herself—maybe not in full, but at least reached out to the girl in her human form, given her some form of companionship she so craved. Or at the very least, been able to have a proper conversation about her leaving. Andrea thought she’d been talking to something the equivalent of a dog, with little comprehension of what she said. So, she hadn’t laid out verbatim, the extent of her plans for her time in the city.

And now…now Miranda feared Andrea had completely found a whole other life in the city. That she would never again run the fields of her family home. That Miranda would spend the rest of her days so very alone, keeping Andrea’s parents safe until they passed. Would Andrea return then? What if she never returned? 

What if Andrea spent the rest of her life elsewhere, Miranda trapped within the quarters of the world she’d first met the girl in, and Miranda never got to see her ever again?

And then a dead weight of dread settled heavy in Miranda’s soul. After over a year of no letters containing personal updates on her life, Andrea had not sent an article in months. Miranda could not believe the girl had lost her position—her writing improved all the time, each piece better than the last.

Now, nothing.

So, Miranda made daily efforts to walk past the boundaries of her bond, and it was maddening. Relief flooded her veins that she was still constrained—it meant Andrea was at the very least  _ alive _ . 

Alive, and painfully out of reach.

Depression settled in Miranda’s bones. It had been nearly six years since she’d last seen her Andrea. And now with no word from her for months, nothing stopped her mind from conjuring up the most horrible thoughts. What if she was sick, or injured, or homeless? What if she needed help? What if she’d been captured? What if…

What if nothing quite so terrible had happened? What if Andrea had…found someone?

What if she was a somewhere leading the life of a housewife? What if she was in the family way? Married, a mother. Both joyous life events, things Andrea certainly deserved if she so desired them but…they left a hole ever growing in Miranda’s heart.

Six years came and went, crept onward into seven. Miranda settled in to her wolf form and laid on the floor of her cabin. The fire died out, and the sun set and rose, casting an array of lights through the slats of windows, and Miranda did not rise from her spot. She closed her eyes. If her Andrea was never to return, there was nothing else in all the world she wanted. Nothing that stirred an ounce of spark in her mind, in her heart. She would either flourish in the light that was Andrea’s love, or she would whither away, go somewhere Andrea would meet her again for certain one day.

 

The back of a cattle cart was not the most pleasant of places to ride, but Andy figured she been in worse traveling conditions.

These past seven years had been some of the most incredible of her lifetime.

First, she’d been scared. So, absolutely terrified. She didn’t know her father’s family, had never met them until she showed up on their doorstep looking to live with them. But they’d accepted her readily and she loved her Auntie and cousins.

In the beginning she watched for her Wolf, for Miranda. She’d wondered if she’d still see here when she lived in the City. It was a relief to find she really wasn’t crazy—Miranda was home with her parents. But she did miss her.

Andy’s Auntie kept her grounded and helped her adjust to city life, helped her find her internship at the newspaper.

Her job at the paper started out as the girl who kept the place swept, worked as a shop assistant, but then one day they came up short on articles for their weekly edition, leaving a gaping white hole beneath the tail end of an article that ended at the very top of the last page, and Andy asked if she could help fill up the space.

A lot of what filled the newspaper were recordings of events going on in the city, reviews on plays, local community projects, but Andy had been so taken with the people around here. She’d met so many amazing people, they were everywhere! And all so very different, with some amazing stories. Andy conducted an interview with a war veteran turned barber shop owner who specialized in giving free haircuts and shaves to the city’s homeless, in an effort to help them with keeping some measure of pride in their appearance and assist them in finding jobs. His interview had shone a light on just how many of their former soldiers made up the homeless population, especially those injured severely in war.

After that, Andy specialized in her interviews. She went around the city, just meeting new people and getting their stories.

And then her reach went beyond the city. After three years of seeking out every person willing to do an interview with her—the number of which increased over the years after her articles were so well received—she found she would need to go elsewhere to find her stories.

So, she traveled. Andy hopped on the back of a cart full of cabbages, interviewed their farmer on his way to another town, and mailed back her article to her paper.

Money got tight. There were little ways of easing the burden on her finances, like explaining her job, and offering to publish an interview with someone in exchange for food or transportation—some people from the city began traveling places she went to in order to experience some of the things she had, try the restaurants and the cabbage farmer who’d given her an initial ride actually got more business after her article. 

But letters home, the further she got away, the more expensive they got to send. Eventually she penned a letter to her paper and asked that they send the articles she wrote to her parents for her. 

Now though, it was time. She hadn’t seen her parents in seven years. That was unfathomable to her. Part of her felt like she’d merely blinked and poof! She’d been on the road for four years. 

What was even more unfathomable than not seeing her parents, was not seeing Miranda. She was almost certain the Wolf she'd grown up with was dead. Surely, she had to be—she’d already lived such a long life for a wolf.

She dreamed about her sometimes though. About their days in the fields of her family farm, and by the stream. 

Lately, she dreamed more about the human Miranda—the woman she’d named her Wolf after. It was strange, they’d only met once but Andy felt like...like she knew this woman somehow. She’d often thought to go back and visit her, but any effort she made to go past the stream had her Wolf tugging on her skirts and giving off worried little growls warning her not to go further into the woods.

She wanted to see her parents, first and foremost. And her Wolf, oh some part of her hoped her Wolf was alive and well and waiting for her at the edge of her property. 

Her heart sank when, as she walked the last stretch home, she came up over the hill and saw no sign of her Wolf waiting on her.

“Andy?”

Her father had been feeding the chickens when she began her final approach of the cottage. Maker, it seemed so much smaller now. But maybe because she was bigger—she’d shot up nearly a foot since she was fifteen. 

“Daddy!” she hadn’t expected to render such a childish response, but Heavens she’d missed her parents.

The chickens were certainly glad of her arrival as her father threw down the bag of feed, spilling a feast at their feet as he ran to sweep his daughter up in a hug.

“Andy!” her mother cried as she came running out of the house and launched herself to wrap her arms around Andy.

She was home.   
  


She’d been home for two days. She got back into the swing of helping with the chores, and she had experienced so much in her time away, her parents were eager to hear everything.    
She felt badly they hadn’t heard from her in so long. And apparently her articles had stopped showing up, but that made sense she supposed. The paper changed owners after the original owner passed away, he’d been the one sending her articles home for her. But she had original copies of her work in her leather-bound journal, and her parents had stayed up late with her the first night home to catch up on the articles they’d missed.

Now, after two days of seeing absolutely no sign of her Wolf, Andy decided it was time. She was a grown woman, childhood promises no longer bound her—they’d barely bound her as a child, it was only her Wolf keeping her from venturing deeper into the woods. 

She wanted to see if Miranda was still there. The woman never came out of the woods, and when she asked her parents, they said they were the only people for miles around.

But she knew somewhere in the woods there was a cabin, maybe abandoned now, but possibly with the last connection to her childhood friend and companion. She knew it was silly, but maybe Miranda knew what became of her Wolf.

So, she packed a basket with soup and bread—offerings for the human Miranda, it would be rude to show up unannounced  _ and _ empty handed—and her leather journal. Maybe she would be interested in what Andy had been up to all these years. If the woman still lived in the woods, she had to be lonely. So, Andy hoped that, if her childhood friend Miranda the Wolf was gone, maybe this Miranda could be a sort of friend in her adulthood.

Which was kind of just…stupid. Miranda might not be around anymore. And even if she was, what interest could she have in Andy?

She had the most horrible thought once she passed the stream. What if she was dead? She shook the thought from her mind almost as soon as it crossed it. She shouldn't tell herself scary stories. She was going to find the cabin and get her answers there.

While her childhood home had seemed so much smaller than it used to, the woods seemed that much larger. It had been nearly seventeen years since she’d gone this deep into them, and somehow, they went deeper still.

A twig snapped somewhere from behind, and there was the rustle of leaves…

And the growl of a wolf.

Whirling around, for a moment Andy thought she might see Miranda—her Wolf, alive and well and not quite recognizing her.

What she found was indeed a wolf, just not  _ her _ wolf. Dark brown fur, where she’d expected snowy white, pitch black eyes where she longed for blue.

Something just short of hilarity struck Andy then. At five, she’d seen fit to carry a pointy stick when wandering into the woods. Here she was, twenty-two, and all she had was a little picnic basket.

And her feet. Taking her skirts in hand, Andy bolted, and the wolf howled before giving her chase.

Andy ran faster than she ever had in her life—and she once raced after a train she’d nearly missed except for her quick feet and the leaping jump off the platform. She still wouldn’t have made it if not for a crew member reaching out and pulling her to safety.

There was no one to pull her to safety now.

Andy screamed when the wolf snapped at the back of her skirt, missing it by a hair. Her lungs burned as she pushed further, ran faster.

Her knees stung when she tripped over a fallen tree branch and fell harsh against the forest floor.

She rolled onto her back and shielded her face with her arm. Oh Maker, she should have kept her promise, shouldn’t have gone into the woods alone.

But nothing happened. The wolf stopped, just a foot away, snarling and snapping, and then sniffing. It looked around and then walked away, as if it’d lost sight of her.

Her eyes went to the branch she’d tripped over. It had been  _ solid _ like it was a permanent fixture of the earth. There was something on it—carving, intricate and strange, covered the entire length of thin wood.

She reached out to touch it and found it thrummed with some kind of energy. It felt weirdly familiar to her, but she didn’t understand why or what it was. She tried picking it up, but just like when she’d tripped, the branch stayed still and solidly in place.

She gingerly rose to her feet and, with one last curious stare at the strange branch, she continued on. 

This area, it felt familiar. Like she’d been here a thousand times before, as opposed to only once. She felt certain she was near the cabin, she had to be.

Maybe Miranda had something to help deal with the wolves. Hopefully. The woman lived in the midst of their environment after all.

Andy’s heart leapt with relief. Noon-day light flooded the clearing as Miranda’s cabin came in to view. No smoke rose from the chimney, but that didn’t mean anything. It was fall, but summer’s warmth still clung to the air.

Andy cleared her throat and brushed dirt off her skirt before stepping up to the door and knocking.

“Miranda? Hello! Miranda? I don't know if you remember me, Andy? I think you called me Andrea though…” she trailed off awkwardly then. There was no response from inside the cabin. She pressed her ear to the door and heard nothing inside. 

The door creaked a bit like it was unlatched when she pressed against it, so she gave it a tentative little push, and the door swung open to reveal an empty cabin.

Or so it seemed, until Andy stepped inside and looked around.

“Miranda?!” shock and horror in her throat as she took in the sight.

Miranda, her Wolf, blue blanket wrapped around her shoulders, was lying in front of the barren fireplace, bone thin and…oh Maker was she  _ breathing _ ?

An anguished cry tore from her lips as she fell to her knees at Miranda’s side, basket abandoned as she laid her hands onto the Wolf’s back, tears spilling over as she shook her childhood friend, “Miranda? Miranda! Wake up please, please! Can you hear me? Miranda!”

Slowly, an icy blue eye slid open.

And then there was something, like the crack of thunder, resounded through the cabin, energy bubbled over her skin and suddenly, the fur beneath her fingers was gone, replaced by blanket actually.

Sitting on the floor before her, her Wolf was gone, replaced by a very human Miranda, wrapped in Andy’s blanket, staring wide-eyed in disbelief, as if  _ Andy  _ were the one who’d just done the impossible.

“ _ Andrea _ .”

 

Miranda had no idea just how long she’d been asleep. Comatose, was more like it. Her joints ached with underuse, and she felt depleted. 

But none of that mattered, never would matter, how could it?  _ Andrea. _

She was here. Oh, Moon above, she looked so  _ different _ and her hair was a disheveled mess, and she had dirt on her face, but there was no mistaking it, it was her, she came back!

Miranda threw aching arms around the girl, no, the woman. How long had it been? Gone was the child who’d run the fields of her family farm, and the stoic lonely fifteen-year-old, teetering on the cusp of womanhood. 

She was  _ beautiful,  _ and she was  _ home. _

“M-Miranda?” she asked weakly, confused.

Miranda released her hold and pulled the cerulean blanket more tightly around herself. Goodness, she’d given Andrea quite the shock, hadn’t she? 

“Yes,” she said. 

“You…you’re the Wolf?” Andrea asked, it sounded like she thought the question was almost stupid, or ridiculous. 

“I’m Miranda,” she said, “both in the human sense, and the Wolf sense.”

“Okay…” Andrea replied, with some measure of certainty regained. “How long have you been laying here like this?”

“How long have you been gone?”

Andrea visibly paled, breath catching in her throat as if she’d been winded by the question, mouth working silently, trying to figure out what to say. “S-seven years, Miranda, Maker, have you b-been…”

Miranda shook her head. “No, I’ve merely lost track of the time that has passed since you left. Well, perhaps not as much as I thought—it was the seven-year mark I…well. You hadn’t come home. I knew you were still alive, but I had no hope of your return.”

“So, you just laid down to die?” Andrea asked, horrified.

Ahh. She supposed it had been rather a dramatic reaction on her part. But no…no, she couldn’t say it was unwarranted. Andrea had been everything to her. 

Was still, everything to her, and looking very much like she was about to rise up and flee, Miranda could see the panic building, panic Andrea was working to suppress but losing. The smell of fear was around her, Miranda scented it on Andrea…though perhaps her senses weren’t accurate at the moment, Andrea smelled like old fear—like she’d been afraid of something else and had since gotten over it. But maybe it was wishful thinking on Miranda’s behalf—this must all be very frightening, it had to be.

But then she smelled the scent of blood, also Andrea’s, and that had her clumsily pushing the woman back to be sitting on her bottom, Miranda straddling her as she looked, and sniffed, trying to find her injury, it was only when she sat at Andrea’s feet she found it.

Her knees. They were dirt coated, bloody, scrapped up something awful. Blood ran lines down her calves, into her shoes. 

“I will kill whoever did this to you,” the threat rose up in her throat unbidden, but nonetheless true. How dare something, someone hurt what was hers? 

“I did it to myself really,” Andrea said softly, which had Miranda looking up at her face. Andrea was examining her knees then and explaining. “I tripped over a weird tree branch on my way to your cabin.”

“One of the totems that wards my property from danger, yes.”

“Oh,” Andrea said, as if she’d put together some small piece of a puzzle troubling her. “That must be why I disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” did she mean Miranda’s magic had sent her away all those years? 

Andrea was blushing then. “Well, I was kind of…running, when I tripped over the tr—your, er, totem.” She bit her lip nervously. “There was a…well, a wolf. It chased after me and I thought for sure I was a goner once I fell, but it looked around like it’d lost me, and ran away.”

“A  _ wolf _ ,” Miranda bit off the rest of that sentence. Conflict—she was grateful, so very grateful that Andrea had come, made her return known, but it had been so  _ dangerous _ . Miranda would rather she’d died on her frozen hearth than have Andrea perish in her search of her. 

“No one, and nothing, can see through my wards,” she settled for explaining, “If you’d been paying attention, you would have noticed that where you once saw more empty forest, there was actually my clearing.” 

Andrea nodded then looking for all the world…fascinated, more than afraid.

“Come, I have much to explain, and your injuries need cleaned,” Miranda said as she rose to her feet, exhilaration at Andrea’s presence overrode her body’s discomfort, her magic protesting, but complying, when she summoned her robes to her, the clothing shimmering into existence over her skin as she stood, though she kept the blanket wrapped securely like a shawl over her shoulders. She offered her hands to Andrea, the younger woman taking hold, and Miranda helped her to her feet. 

She led her to her kitchen table, though Andrea released hold of Miranda’s hands to pick up something…the picnic basket—the one she’d brought before the first time she met Miranda in her human form. She drew close to the door and for a moment Miranda stopped breathing, was Andrea about to take her possessions and run? Was she so overwhelmed she would risk an encounter the wild wolf than stay in the safety of Miranda’s wards?

But no, Andrea merely closed the door she’d left opened when she arrived. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to leave it open, but you really scared me for a minute.”

Conflict again, hating that she’d given Andrea reason to fear, and loving that the younger woman had feared on her behalf. Concern meant Andrea cared.

“I do apologize,” she said stiffly. She was embarrassed now, ashamed that she’d given up hope in Andrea. If she’d only kept her hope alive just a little while longer…oh Moon and stars, she could have been there to greet Andrea upon her return home. Seen her, the very moment she was back within her reach.

Though the way things had happened…now she no longer had to ponder just how to reveal herself to Andrea, she’d done it rather instinctively, out of surprise and shock that her bonded had returned.

Bonded.

Oh, she had so much to explain.

Andrea set the picnic basked on the dining room table, and at Miranda’s gesture, she took a seat in one of the wooden chairs. 

“You’ll pardon my intrusion, I hope,” Miranda said, as she knelt before her and raised the fallen hem of Andrea’s skirt to reveal her injured knees.

Oh, she did look so beautiful when she blushed, Andrea’s cheeks pinked, flush creeping down her neck as she stammered out, “I-I-I could d-do that myself.”

“I did not realize your worldly ventures led you to obtain a medical degree. Just where did you train?” Miranda asked drily.

Andrea returned her blitheness with a derisive snort. “Where did you, oh she who lives in the woods?”

“I have studied magic from all over the world, my dear Andrea, I’ve traveled places you could hardly visit in your wildest imagination.”

“Y-you’re going to use magic on me?” Andrea asked, tones nothing short of horrified.

Well, yes, she had been. Her magic could heal Andrea easily, but the smell of fear was back now, fresh, and Miranda cleared her throat. Tinctures and a vessel of water came at her quiet command, appearing on the table beside Andrea’s basket. A cloth materialized in Miranda’s hand.

“Around you, if that suits.” 

Andrea nodded, and Miranda took that as license to proceed.

The younger woman was silent as Miranda doused the cloth in water and gently cleaned her knees before brushing a healing tincture across them. Andrea let out a quiet hiss of pain when the medicine hit her open wounds. Miranda had forgotten such treatments did sting and she offered the woman an apologetic grimace as she stoppered the bottle before running a finger across both knees, bandaging appearing beneath her touch. Andrea started, but did no protest, so Miranda proceeding further, though not pressing her luck, she took up the cloth and began washing the blood from Andrea’s legs, removing her shoes to reveal calloused feet as she cleansed them of blood. Hmm. Her shoes were rather worn. She would rectify that later. If Andrea would listen to her, hear her out, Miranda could fix anything.

“Are you hurt anywhere else, Andrea?”

Andrea timidly offered up the hand that had broken a portion of her earlier fall and revealed a scraped palm. Miranda made quick work of cleaning and medicating before bandaging it.

Andrea’s hand in hers, Miranda pressed a kiss over the bandage she’d magicked into existence. 

“I’m a reporter,” Andrea said suddenly, and Miranda looked up at her in question.

“Yes,” she said as she rose to her feet and pulled the other table chair closer to Andrea’s before seating herself. “I was able to keep up with your well being through the letters and articles you sent your parents.”

“Oh, you met my parents?”

“They cannot see my wolf form. No one can, save for you. I would eavesdrop when they read what you sent aloud.”

Andrea nodded, looking like she was working a thought around in her brain. Miranda wondered at the sudden declaration of her job. Had she been awkwardly trying to start a conversation of her time away with Miranda? Or was it some form of threat—that she would write an article about Miranda, expose her to people in the city? Neither notion bothered her, and the latter she found rather amusing.

“Anyway, my point is I um…well I interview people for a living. Its how I learn about different people from different walks of life and share their stories so others can understand,” Andrea continued nervously. “I want to interview you.”

Miranda’s mind went blank for a moment. “Interview me? For your paper?”

Andrea shook her head. “No, for me. I have absolutely no idea what in the world is going on here, and you’re not exactly overflowing with answers on your own so…what if I interviewed you. I’ll ask you what I want to know, and you can tell me what you can.”

“I don’t know if you could even begin to ask the right questions,” Miranda said.

And that, that brought a rather attractive, confident half-grin to Andrea’s face.

“I have a knack for asking the right questions.”

 

Andy had been nervous, that day in the city when she approached a tall, larger than life man, and asked if he would answer her questions about his barber shop. 

She’d shaken in her skin as she prepared to interview the  _ Queen _ of all people, when word of her articles reached the capital.

Never had Andy been  _ this nervous _ interviewing someone. And this wasn’t even for publication! Oh Maker, if she put even a bit of this into the paper, she’d be sent straight to the loony bin. 

She tried to remain composed though. She opened the picnic basket to get her journal. She didn’t have anything to write with, hadn’t expected to find anything worth writing down, but Miranda…gosh magic was cool, she uh, was conjured the word? She conjured up a ridiculously beautiful ivory pen sitting in a silvery inkpot. 

“Is Miranda your given name?” she asked as she took up the pen. Names were important, she always started her interviews with getting her subjects name.

It did have Miranda raising an eyebrow at her—but she wasn’t the one asking the questions, was she? “Yes.”

Andy nodded and put down  _ Miranda ?  _ as her subject. 

“And you’re…what, exactly? A werewolf?”

“Where on earth did you learn about werewolves?” Miranda asked in return, tones full of disapproval. 

“I read about them once. And I met all sorts of people when I was traveling, lots of villages have tales of supernatural creatures, werewolves included. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I am most certainly not a werewolf, Andrea.”

“So the blood and stuff, that didn’t bother you?” Andy asked.

“Bother me?”

“In a ‘that looks like a tasty snack’ way.” 

Miranda looked mildly horrified at that. “Most certainly not. Andrea, I’m hardly some gastly creature, I am a witch,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Though the soup in your basket does invoke such feelings in me.”

Oh. Miranda had to be starving, Andy realized, feeling badly then. She put down her pen and journal and fished the jug of soup out of the basket, handing it to Miranda. “Go ahead, help yourself. There’s biscuits too if you’d like.”

Miranda made a noncommittal sound and suddenly the jug of soup was a cerulean blue bowl of soup with silver spoon dipped inside. A biscuit had been summoned from the basket to sit on the edge of the little white plate her bowl sat upon, and Miranda began taking delicate sips of Andy’s offerings.

In the meantime, Andy took up her journal and pen, and crossed out the  _?  _ she put down and found it disappeared when she did that. Neat. Spooky, but neat. She replaced the banished question mark with  _ Witch _ .

“So, why does a witch turn into a wolf?” Andy asked.

“It is my familiar form.”

Andy wrote that down. “Familiar form? I’ve heard of witches having familiars, is it a similar concept?”

“The mortal concept of familiars is often skewed. We do not have familiars. We become them.”

“For what purpose?” Andy asked.

“To commune with magic in its most pure form so it will allow us to master it.” 

Andy looked up from her writing then. “I’m sorry? Could you explain that?”

Miranda looked thoughtful for a moment and then, “I was born in a human form, obviously. As I reached maturity and grew closer with my magical abilities, I needed deeper access to magic itself. There is a point in adolescence where a witch can cease to have her powers—we need either the child-like innocence of youth to connect us to magic, or we need to forge a more natural connection. Witches meditate and seek out their familiar form. Mine was a wolf. Once I grew capable of transforming into my familiar form I was finally able to begin the journey to my fullest magical potential. As a wolf, magic imbues itself in me, trusts me, as it does with everything in nature, I can see it in everything and everyone. When I return to my human form, it continues to recognize me, and allows me control over it.”

Wow. Okay. That…made sense she supposed? If magic was supposed to make sense? She hadn’t known it was real until…gosh an hour ago?

“You said you traveled a lot, before? Studying magic?” Andy asked.

“Yes, I was always on the move, never could stay in the same place for too long.”

“What changed?”

“Pardon?”

Andy looked up again from her notes, “I mean, why’d you stop? You’ve been here for right around seventeen years, right?”

“Twenty-two.”

Andy nearly dropped her pen and did send a wild mark up the page. But running a little slash through it made it vanish as she asked, “Twenty-two?”

“Yes.”

“Um…care to explain what’s kept you here for twenty-two years?”

“You did,” Miranda said, as if the answer were that simple.

“…what?”

Miranda was thoughtful again, carefully considering before explaining. “You recall that I said humans cannot see me in my familiar form, yes?”

Andy nodded.

“That is because they cannot see magic. You, however did see me. You surely do not remember, you first saw me when you were a babe. I’d been cutting though the woods as a Wolf, communing with magic when I saw your parents in the field, constructing your cottage.”

“And I saw you?” Andy asked.

“You looked right at me.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’ve stayed.”

“Ahh. Well, there are only two explanations for how someone can see a witch in their familiar form. They must either be a witch themselves…oh Andrea do get that look off your face—you’re no witch, if you had been, I could have been on my merry way.”

Andy schooled her features and cleared her throat. “Uh, then whats the other way? That one applies to me, yeah?”

Miranda nodded, the motion stilted as if she were weary of what she was about to say.

“Is it bad?” Andy asked.

Miranda seemed surprised by the question, and warmth filled her eyes. “I certainly do not think so. I merely fear you may consider it so.”

“I don’t know how well you’ve kept up with my work over the years, but I’ve met lots of different people. Witch might be pretty weird, but you’ve still got contenders.”

“Who outranks the witch you thought was a wolf?”

“I once interviewed a man who was legally married to a goat.”

“I must have missed that one,” Miranda said blandly.

Andy shrugged. “The other reason, Miranda? Why could I see you, and why did that make you stay?”

Miranda put down her spoon and pushed the bowl aside. Andy would have worried she hadn’t eaten enough, but when she thought of it, the woman may well intend to eat more soon—if she’d been totally done, she’d just banish it, right? Who would do dishes, if they could do magic?

“In order for someone to see a witch in her familiar form, they must either be a witch themselves…or that witch’s soulmate.”

Andy stared at Miranda then, just…stared, trying to process exactly what she’d just said. she closed her journal and set it aside. 

“Soulmate?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m not a witch…” Andy worked out slowly, and only proceeded after Miranda nodded at her statement. “So…I must be your soulmate?”

“Yes. It is so I…all of the signs are there.”

“Signs?” Andy asked.

Miranda actually…was she blushing? Her cheeks looked pink from where Andy sat, but it could have been the sun set casting rays of rosy light into Miranda’s cabin.

“I was immediately protective of you, filled with an imperative need to keep you safe.”

“Is that why you couldn’t leave?” Andy asked.

“No. Yes. Partly,” Miranda settled on. “When a witch has met her soulmate, she is  bound to the area she meets them in. It is a way to make certain she unites with them—knows that they’re near and initiates contact with them.”

That made Andy feel a little sick to her stomach. “You…you’re trapped here? Like, forever?”

“Not forever, no, Andrea. Just until…”

“Until what?” Andy asked.

“Until we have completed the bond.”

Andy was coming up blank on that. “…um…what?”

“Bound you to me, in return. I’m bound to the place I met you in, for the purposes of securing you to me. If you were bound to me, I would always have you with me—if not physically than in the uh…well in the sense that we are never far from those we love even when we cannot be at their side. I would be able to move freely through the world once more.”

“Then why didn’t you just uh…I dunno, bind me? What do you need, a drop of blood? Some hair? I can get naked in some moonlight and dance around a fire.”

“Your last suggestion was the closest, Andrea, though there is no need for moonlight or fire unless you desired it.”

Huh? “Dancing nak—” Andy slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

She dropped her hand and gestured between herself and the other woman. “We have to…”

“Indeed.”

“That answers the question of why you had to wait. But why so long, I mean, I was fifteen when I left—”

“If you think,” Miranda said coolly, “that fifteen is  _ anywhere _ close to an appropriate age for anyone to make advances toward you, you are sorely mistaken. It is bad enough I am twenty years your senior.”

That had Andy snorting. “Wish some of the men I’ve met over the years had similar ideas.”

The room suddenly felt cold. Like ice-freezing cold, Andy could actually see the condensation from her breath as she began to shiver, “M-Miranda?”

“Did someone…has some  _ vile _ man—”

“Oh gosh! No! Miranda, I’ve been hit on before, jeez, not…not anything like that. I just meant its creepy getting hit on by old men.”

The room regained its regular temperature though Miranda rose from her chair and made herself busy with rebuilding a fire in her hearth—by hand, no magic that Andy could see. Was that something she couldn’t do? Andy didn’t think there was anything Miranda couldn’t do with magic, so she figured it was more to distract herself.

Finally, Miranda said. “But you do not find it creepy, coming from an old woman?”

“You’re not old,” Andy corrected, “and you haven’t hit on me. Well,” she thought on the hint of amusement in Miranda’s eyes when she’d said Andy’s ‘dancing naked in the moonlight’ guess was close. “Not a lot, anyway.”

“I suppose I haven’t…I have been taking care to try and not overwhelm you.”

“Yeah, we’re way past overwhelmed and right in ‘if I wake up tomorrow in an insane asylum I won’t be totally surprised’. This seems like some kind of weird dream state or something.”

“A nightmare, perhaps?”

“No. Not a nightmare,” Andy said.

Her fire built, Miranda turned to face Andy once more.

“So. Is our interview concluded?” she asked.

Andy shook her head. “Where would you go?”

“Pardon?”

“If we bonded, where would you go?”

“Ahh,” Miranda seemed to think it over. “I haven’t considered the matter much.”

“Would you take me with you?”

“No, Andrea, I would never force you to go—”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Andy insisted as she shot to her feet. “If we were bonded would you…would you let me go with you? you wouldn’t leave me?”

Miranda looked as though she’d never heard a more ridiculous question in all her life.

“Andrea, you are always welcome wherever I am. If you wished it, I would have you see the world, always at my side.”

Andrea crossed the cabin in a few short steps.

She captured Miranda’s lips in an urgent kiss before pulling back only to say, “The fire can stay, and the moonlight’s on its way.”

The final rays of dusk were slipping away.

“And so it is.”

“I wanted you to be there when I got home. Even though I knew wolves shouldn’t live this long, I wanted you to be there anyway. And then when I didn’t find your wolf form, I coudldn’t stop thinking about meeting you in the forest years ago. I hoped you were still around even if I hadn’t seen you in seventeen years. I wanted you. I guess it makes sense now why.”

And it made sense now why she always felt more for a wolf that followed her around her childhood home than she ever did for any other suitor who had come her way. She may not know Miranda, but at the same time she  _ knew  _ Miranda. This all didn’t seem to be so beyond belief. It seemed like the natural order of things. And she knew if she had one doubt, it would stop in an instant.

“I waited every day until...well, it hasn’t been so long since then. But I worried you had found happiness elsewhere.”

“I was happy, but not in the way you mean. No one fit.”

A pleased noise left Miranda’s mouth. Andy shook her head and leaned up once more to kiss the other woman. 

“You don’t have to be  _ that  _ pleased.”

“No, I do, trust me Andrea.” She wrapped her arms around Andrea. “But just because I’m pleased doesn’t mean that this has to go any farther than a few kisses if you do not want it to. If you need more time to get to know me as Miranda the woman and not Miranda the wolf,  what is a few more weeks or months after twenty-two years.”

Andy considered that for a long moment. She had had a few brief relationships over the years. Had slept with a couple of them, but only when she had known them for a good while. She needed to know who they were before she let them that close to her. But Miranda was different.

“No. No, this is fine. I don’t need more time to know that the bed won’t be empty come tomorrow morning. And I want you to be able to travel around freely again. There are still things I want to do in this world with you by my side. I’m sure you feel the same.”

Miranda nodded and gripped Andy harder. “If you’re sure.”

Andy kissed her again just to shut her up. She felt so safe here in a cabin in the middle of the woods filled with wolves and who knew what other dangers. She hoped her parents wouldn’t worry about her, but she had no plans to leave Miranda’s side until the sun rose. It was too dark now to travel through the woods anyway.

“Miranda?” Andy asked, breathless, pressed against the other woman so hard she wasn’t sure where each of them began.

“Yes?” Miranda’s voice was already ragged like a well worn blanket. 

“That spell with your clothes, it works in reverse yes?”

“It does, yes.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

The next second they were both bare just as the moon crested the horizon and bathed them both in its rays.

“And the bed?”

Miranda dragged them both, stumbling and caressing the other’s body, exchanging breathless kisses until they hit a bed in the corner and collasped onto it. Andy moaned as Miranda’s leg slipped between hers, pressing against the apex of her thighs. Oh, Maker, it hadn’t felt that good even in the midst of it with anyone else, and they had only just begun.

“Miranda,” Andy breathed out, arching into the other woman, wanting, waiting for Miranda to take what was so clearly hers.

Miranda’s hand found just where Andy wanted her to go, pushing in slowly, coaxing out wetness, driving Andy higher and higher until she broke and reformed, gold filling the cracks that had formed, making her stronger, more beautiful. She felt so much  _ more  _ now, but it wasn’t enough.

Miranda let herself be overpowered, turned until she was flat on the bed with Andy above her, looking at Andy like she was the moon herself. But Andy was the one doing the worshipiing. She kissed down Miranda’s body, finding every sensitive place and committing them to memory, until she got to the most sensitive place of all and licked and sucked until Miranda cried out and Andy felt herself slammed with so, so many feelings and thoughts she couldn’t even begin to sort them all out. Her brain was overwhelmed, her body too, tingling and clenching, she felt the darkness closing in. 

“Let go Andrea,” Miranda whispered.

And so Andy did.

—

Andy woke the next morning to the smell of eggs and bacon cooking and wood burning. She opened her eyes and then immediately shut them again. Everything was shining and golden and what in the world was that? 

“Miranda?” Andy asked, sitting up with her eyes still closed.

“Yes, darling,” Miranda said from across the room from the sounds of it.

Andy opened her eyes again just to make sure that she hadn’t imagined things in a sleepy stupor, but no, there were golden lines flowing throughout the room. She followed them until she saw Miranda, shining like the sun and moon all at once. She pulled in a breath.

“What does magic look like to you?” Andy asked, pushing up from the bed and making her way across the room. She couldn’t feel the lines, they didn’t caress her and undulate around her like they did Miranda, but she could most definitely see them.

“Golden light, why?” She turned to see Andy standing in the middle of the room.

Andy reached out to touch another line, it didn’t flee from her, but it didn’t really do anything.

“You see them?” Miranda asked, still watching Andy.

“I do.”

Miranda breathed in and it sounded like contentment.  _ “And do you hear me?” _

Andy nodded absently. “Of course I do, why wouldn’t I?”

_ “Andrea, look at me.” _

Andy did, but saw nothing amiss.

_ “Is my mouth moving?” _

It wasn’t. Andy just kept staring, not really understanding. “What? How?”

“The bond,” Miranda said, speaking aloud again. “It manifests in different ways, but the one constant is mates can hear each other’s thoughts if they wish. I believe it will take you a good bit longer to figure out how to control it, but you can one day. Otherwise, you still aren’t a witch. Though a few mates I know of could do one simple spell each, usually related to whatever they did for a living, a few others feel the magic, there was a rumor that went around about someone who could turn into their mate’s familiar, seeing the magic, though, I haven’t heard of that, but I suppose it makes sense that somewhere out there there’s someone else who can.”

Andy was getting a little dizzy from all the golden light around her. Could she even turn this off now. She scrunched her eyes shut for a second and when she opened them again everything was as normal. She looked around, almost panicked, had she ruined it already? But as soon as she wished it back, the golden lines floated before her vision again.

She looked at Miranda, golden as the old gods in their paintings. She walked to Miranda and kissed her again, feeling an echo of pleasure that wasn’t hers and sinking into it.

“You’re free now, where do you want to go first?”

“Wherever you go, darling.”


End file.
